As South Korea’s political crisis continues following President Yoon’s failed attempt to declare martial law on December 3, new details are emerging in the country’s legislature that suggest the full scope of Yoon’s coup plot may have included plans to trigger a “limited war” with North Korea. Planning documents circulated among accomplices prior to the martial law order also demonstrate that Yoon and former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun looked to past martial law orders as precedents, including those issued prior to the Gwangju Massacre and the Jeju Massacre.

A possible timeline of how Yoon’s coup plans interacted with escalations against North Korea has begun to emerge. Yoon’s tenure in office has been characterized by unbridled aggression against Pyongyang, and a cozy military relationship with Washington and Tokyo that sent tensions soaring throughout Northeast Asia. It is now known that Yoon’s coup plans began in July of 2023.

Upon coming into office in 2022, Yoon adopted a military policy towards North Korea known as the Kill Chain Doctrine, which advocates the use of preemptive strikes in the event of suspected attacks. Over the next two years, the rate and magnitude of joint military exercises with the US exploded; over 200 days of US-ROK war games were held in Korea in 2023, and in August of this year the two countries held their first joint nuclear tabletop exercise to rehearse plans for a nuclear strike on the peninsula. Consequently, inter-Korean relations have entered a historic nadir. In December 2023, North Korea took the unprecedented step of renouncing its policy of peaceful reunification.